Clause 3. — (Special conditions.)

Part of Orders of the Day — Housing (Financial Provisions) Bill. – in the House of Commons at on 17 July 1924.

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Photo of Mr William Joynson-Hicks Mr William Joynson-Hicks , Twickenham

Quite frankly I would like, if it were possible, to transform this Bill into a large measure for the assistance of owner-occupiers throughout the country, but it is impossible to do so within the terms of the Financial Resolution. The Bill is so drawn that I cannot make those alterations which I should like to make. On the other hand, I see no objection at all—unless the right hon. Gentleman himself says it is impossible—to the Minister's reconsideration of this very grave and definite decision in the Bill not to permit of any of these houses ever being sold. We want to encourage local authorities to sell. There is another reason in the finance of the Bill. The local authorities, if the Bill is a success, will have to borrow from £80,000,000 to £100,000,000 a year in order to get these houses built within 15 years. Instead of locking up all that public money in municipally-owned houses, would it not be better to turn some of it over: to sell some of the houses, year by year, and so economise enormously on the financial position, ease the situation for the local authorities, and add to the number of owner-occupiers throughout the land. There is only one other point to which I call the attention of the Committee. Under the Act of last year private enterprise, which, roughly speaking, is the building of houses by owner-occupiers or by owners for the purpose of sale to another occupier—as distinct from the municipality which builds for the purpose of letting only—is responsible for two-thirds of the houses built up to the present. What does that mean? The figures up to date of the applications approved by the Minister under that Act show, for private ownership, 96,685 houses. I do not want on this Amendment to insist on the success of the scheme of my right hon. Friend the Member for Ladywood (Mr. N. Chamberlain), but I give that figure to the Committee as showing conclusively that there is in this country a great demand for houses to be built for purposes other than letting by municipal authorities.

I do not say that they are all occupier-owners. There are, of course, many built for occupying ownership and some for private landlords to own and to let. But that is where I think the future of this housing question can best be provided for, namely, by encouraging that form of private enterprise and to get the houses built, partly for owner occupation and partly for the owner to let. I do not believe in this vast extension of municipally-owned houses. I have come to the conclusion, very largely for reasons given by one of the hon. Members opposite, that you are putting quite an improper power in the hands of 2,500,000 tenants in this country as against their landlords, who will be the municipal authorities. I do not wish to make any suggestion, but one does know that in a large town with 20,000 or 30,000, or, in the case of London, many more thousands of houses in the hands of one municipal authority, certain situations may arise. We know the past of the right hon. Gentleman the Minister himself in regard to this matter. Supposing a rent strike were to be started in one of the great municipalities—in Glasgow, if you like—and supposing the right hon. Gentleman was out of a job, was no longer Minister of Health, and he went up to Glasgow, I will not say to ferment, but to organise that strike. It would be much more serious if there were 50,000 houses belonging to the municipality than if they were houses spread over different ownerships, and it is to be o remembered that all these houses would be occupied by the voters-—the electors of that particular municipality.